Buried quake survivors rescued after 5 days

KATHMANDU, Nepal – Rescuers pulled a teenage boy and a woman in her thirties alive from the rubble of Nepal’s earthquake Thursday, April 30, in rare moments of joy five days after a disaster which killed nearly 6,000 people.

The rescue of 15-year-old Pemba Tamang, who told Agence France-Presse that he stayed alive by eating ghee, was hailed as a miracle and greeted with cheers from crowds of bystanders who massed to watch the drama unfold at a ruined guesthouse in Kathmandu.

Just hours later, a team pulled a kitchen worker in her thirties named Krishna Devi Khadka from the rubble of another hotel just streets away, to loud cheers from the multinational team of rescuers who had worked into the night to save her.

Caked in dust, Pemba was fitted with a neck brace and hooked up to an intravenous drip before being lifted onto a stretcher and then raced to a field hospital where he was found to have only minor cuts and bruises.

“I never thought I would make it out alive,” the teenager told Agence at the Israeli military-run facility where he was being kept for observation.

Pemba, who worked at the guesthouse as a bellboy, said he had been eating lunch next to reception when the ground started shaking.

“I tried to run but… something fell on my head and I lost consciousness – I’ve no idea for how long,” he said.

“When I came round, I was trapped under the debris and there was total darkness,” he added.

“I heard other people’s voices screaming out for help around me… but I felt helpless.”

Asked if he had had anything to eat while he was trapped, Pemba said he had come across a jar of ghee (clarified butter) in the dark.

“I don’t know where it came from,” he added.

The recovery of another teenager’s body from the same area underlined how the prospects of finding further survivors of Saturday’s 7.8-magnitude quake were becoming more remote.

Libby Weiss, a spokeswoman at the Israeli field hospital, said Pemba was doing “remarkably well”, confirming he did not have any major injuries.

“He was under the rubble for 120 hours and it is certainly the longest we have heard anybody of being under the rubble and surviving,” she told Agence.

“I don’t have any logical explanation. It is miraculous. It is a wonderful thing to see in all this destruction.”

Emergency workers from France, Norway and Israel operating with the Nepal army and using listening devices to find survivors took 10 hours to free Khadka once they had discovered her.

“She was injured but she was conscious and talking,” a Nepal army major said.

“It is as though she had been born again.”

‘How will I earn?’

While Pemba appeared to have emerged from his ordeal largely unscathed, a man who was rescued on Tuesday night after being trapped for 82 hours was coming to terms with having his leg amputated.

Speaking to Agence in his hospital bed, Rishi Khanal, 28, recounted how he had given up hope of being found alive and felt that he had been given “a second life” but worried about how he would now fend for himself.

“I thought I would work, I would earn… how will I after this?” said Khanal who had been on his way to a new job in Dubai when he was caught in the quake.

Launching an appeal for $415 million in aid, the UN said it would take a marathon effort to help the people of one of Asia’s poorest countries.

The International Monetary Fund said it was ready to extend aid to Nepal and would send a team to assess the situation “as soon as possible”.

Nepalese and Indian military helicopters have also been flying in aid to remote areas of Gorkha district, another badly-hit region, which otherwise takes up to 12 days to reach by foot, the WHO said.

The latest official toll put the number of dead at 5,844 and more than 10,000 are known to have been injured. More than 100 people were also killed in neighbouring countries such as India and China.

Fresh tremors

Although the number of aftershocks since Saturday’s quake has subsided, fresh tremors were felt in Kathmandu overnight.

Some people who had spent the past four nights camped out in the open for fear of aftershocks spent their first night back home.

But a significant number are still living on the roadside or open ground in the ruined capital, which is normally home to some 2.5 million people, including many migrant workers.

“I don’t know how long we are going to do this. How long can we live on the street?” said Rajina Maharjan after another night camped out in a tent outside her house with her husband, in laws and a four-year-old son.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have fled the city since April 25, fearing aftershocks and wanting to inspect the damage back in their families’ villages.

Signs of normal life were returning April 30 to Kathmandu, with shopkeepers opening, some for their first time since the quake, and vegetable vendors laying out produce at devastated Durbar Square. – Rappler.com